Microsegment-based speech-synthesis process

US6308156A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• G DATA SOFTWARE AG · DE

Inventors

• William R. Barry · San Fernando, US
• Ralf Benzmuller · Idar-Oberstein, DE
• Andreas Luning · Herne, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Sep 14, 1998
• Grant date: Oct 23, 2001
• Expiry date: Sep 14, 2018

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G10L13/04
• WIPO field: Computer technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

A digital speech synthesis process in which utterances in a language are recorded, and the recorded utterances are divided into speech segments which are stored so as to allow their allocation to specific phonemes. A text which is to be output as speech is converted to a phoneme chain and the stored segments are output in a sequence defined by the phoneme chain. An analysis of the text to be output as speech is carried out and thus provides information which completes the phoneme chain and modifies the timing sequence signal for the speech segments which are to be strung together for output as speech. The process uses microsegments consisting of: segments for vowel halves and semi-vowels and extending as far as the vowel middle, and a second vowel half from the vowel middle to just before the vowel end; segments for quasi-stationary vowel components cut from the middle of a vowel; consonant segments beginning shortly before the front phoneme boundary and ending shortly before the rear phoneme boundary; and segments for vowel-vowel sequences cut from the middle of a vowel-vowel transition.